If the Skin Fits
by Kamakaze Kheri
Summary: There used to be a small park on the outskirts of Jubilife City.  For the Summer Skin prompt.


i.

There used to be a small park on the outskirts of Jubilife City (or what once was the outskirts). It was bordered by a small chain link fence and Dawn always felt like the minute she walked through the gate she was suddenly anywhere but Sinnoh. She could close her eyes and see anywhere she had ever dreamed of (Kanto, Hoenn, Johto, and even sometimes a mysterious land where the Pokemon there just growled and concrete jungles rose from the ground).

The playground itself sat in a pile of soft sand while all around it a field of grass sprawled out in all directions and Dawn always imagined it went on for as far as the eye could see (it never did though). This was her kingdom, her domain. She could be anyone she wanted here, because at five years old Dawn never wanted to just be Dawn.

Everything about the playground made Dawn laugh and smile. The swings, the jungle gym, the merry-go-round; she loved it all. But she never loved it as much as when the boy named Barry was there to enjoy it with her. Having no siblings, Barry was as good as it was going to get for Dawn.

And they'd play in that playground for hours (and if it were allowed, days), and it was one day, when they were nine and three-quarters, that Dawn sat on the swing and cast her glance around the playground. When would she ever see it again when she and Barry set out upon the journey to end all journeys? They couldn't keep returning here when they were halfway up Mount Coronet.

The swing squeaked as it swung on rusted hinges and the soft padding of feet behind her alerted Dawn that she was no longer alone in the park. She felt the swing halt for a moment before two sneaker-clad feet found an infinitely small amount of space on the back of the swing before Barry had hauled himself up so that he towered above her, his green scarf tickling her face when he leaned over her head.

"What are you so worried about, Dawn?" Barry asked, his voice jubilant as the swing swayed beneath them. "Aren't you excited? One day I'll become the best and then..." His voice trailed off as Dawn tugged on his pant leg and nodded in front of them to the long shadow that was produced from their awkward formation on the swing. It was long, stretching far into the grass and beyond. A black carpet to lead them to their destinies.

"Come back?" Dawn whispered quietly, leaning back into Barry's legs and the blonde bobbed his head once, understanding. On this day next year, the summer solstice, wherever they were they would return to this swing set and see another long shadow. "I don't want to forget," Dawn continued. "I don't want to lose... this." She waved a hand airily and sighed. "I don't want to lose us."

"Dawn, I'm fining you one million dollars for ever thinking that," Barry said as he dropped down from the swing to stand in front of her. "You'll never lose me, ever. Well, maybe if you keep up your Slowpoke act. You never could keep up to me." The smile on Dawn's face was like a breath of fresh air to Barry and with a wink, the boy took off, bouncing through the sand before hitting the grass flying, Dawn hot on his heels.

ii.

It's shortly after they set out on their journeys that Dawn meets Barry in Jubilife City to deliver a map of Sinnoh to him. He was in the trainer school, a place he had always wanted to attend, staring hungrily at the blackboard and jotting down scribbled notes on a napkin to remember all the different status afflictions one could receive.

"Dawn! Fancy meeting you here," he had chimed when she came huffing through the doorway.

"Barry, you left in such a hurry you forgot your map," Dawn scolded, tossing him the folded sheet of paper. Her friend caught it easily, turning it over once in his hands.

"Maps shmaps," he said with an indifferent shrug. "No great explorer of the unknown ever used a map for there was no map for a place never discovered before."

Dawn stared at him, and eyebrow raised. Who did he think he was kidding? "Barry, it's just Sinnoh," she said. "There's nothing new about it. It's been here for... forever."

Barry feigned surprise, his eyes widening and his mouth forming an 'o'. "Dawn," he said. "Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, Dawn." She cocked an eyebrow at him, as if to say, "_I get it_," but he simply returned the look with a smile and continued. "How soon you forget our grand adventures in the park. We knew that place like the back of our hand and yet it was something new every day. You, above all people, should know what I'm getting at here." And he left, with a breeze in his wake and his scarf flying over his shoulder and leaving Dawn to stand there by the blackboard and think.

iii.

She feels like she loses a part of Barry every time she beats him in a battle. There are no tears and no angry shouts, just a small shrug from him as he congratulates her. He ruffles her hair under her hat, vows to get stronger and promises to fine Dawn a billion dollars if she ever lets him win a battle.

Sometime she thinks it's worth the billion just to see the look of happiness on his face.

iv.

It takes less than a year for Dawn to rise to the top like an island rising from the misty depths of the ocean. She's done it. She's the Champion and that's that.

But she can't help but feel lonely.

Which really, is strange because she spent her whole journey being alone. But she looks back on it one afternoon and realizes that she's not really alone. Barry has always popped up somewhere and there's always people that talked to her along the way. So why does she feel so alone now?

Barry visits her one day. His hair is swept up in a tangled mess but the gleam in his bright eyes makes Dawn's heart ache for the past. "I've come to battle you," he said. "I beat everyone else and now there's only you, Dawn. There's only ever been you." (And she doesn't think that that message is supposed to make her heart pound like it did).

"That's fine," she said. "But be prepared to lose."

And somehow she doesn't think he was prepared this time.

v.

The year comes up quick and when Dawn returns to the park, she's dumbfounded.

Because now there's a highway there.

She stands there until Barry comes, lets herself be wrapped in his embrace and cries for so long into his scarf that he tosses it to her and tells her she owes him a new one (because the tears and the snot and the make-up isn't going to come out really). Their beloved playground was gone; paved over as if it didn't matter.

"Dawn," Barry said quietly. She stood apart from him, glaring down the road as if she could will it to vanish and to bring back their childhoods. He could see the way being the Champion had aged her, had turned her into something beyond her eleven years. "We don't need a playground to remember our childhood. We're still kids." He grabs her hand uncertainly and they stand there for a long time in silence.

vi.

That Christmas there's a brand new scarf in the mail from Dawn.

vii.

They're both fourteen when they have their first kiss. That's what they tell people. They never say that it happened at the Sunnyshore Lighthouse in the middle of a rainstorm with Dawn pressed up against the building. That's something they keep to themselves.

viii.

They're fifteen when Dawn brings up the park again. Five years later, she muses. Five years and it seems like so much has changed and yet everything in her life is so different. She's still Champion of Sinnoh, she still has the same Pokemon, she still gets lonely.

But now she has Barry by her side on days when he's not off gallivanting around the world as if it were their childhood playground. She's lucky, really, because while some might have shed their summer skin from when they were ten, Dawn always has Barry around to remind her that he'll fine her a trillion dollars if she ever sheds hers.


End file.
